A Dream-Land in the West

A DREAM-LAND IN THE WEST
ARNE ALEXANDERSSON
A thousand visible and invisible threads tie us to our kinfolk to
the west. There are surely few people in Dalsland who do not have a
relative or friend out there in that great land, following the greatest
folk migration that has ever occurred in historic times. In the course
of a century, beginning in 1820, 40 million persons emigrated from
Europe to America. Dalsland was well to the fore: its emigrants
were almost as numerous as the province's present population. It
was no coincidence that the great German Bremen Line maintained
its own agency in Mellerud during the height of the emigration.
For my own part, I have no contacts with the United States.
Strangely enough there were few in my family who tried their luck
in the West. Of them, some returned and some disappeared. Still
the great emigration has beguiled and fascinated me since my
childhood.
After working many y e a r s for an A m e r i c a n m i l l i o n a i r e ' s family, A n n a Kajsa A n d e r s d o t t er
Möller r e t u r n e d a r o u n d 1 9 1 0 to Ör p a r i s h , w h e r e she built this home i n s p i r e d by t h e
A m e r i c a n bungalow style.
124
For many years my uncle had a country store here in the village of
Assarby-Berga in Or parish. Mail came in three times a week and
around dawn on winter days the mail carrier, Oskar Andersson
from Kroken, arrived on a sleigh drawn by a frisky little horse. The
horse was tied up to the hitching post and got an armload of hay
and a blanket on its back. "Post-Oskar" slung the heavy leather
pouch over his shoulder and went into the store. The usual bunch
who hung out there had gathered to wait for the mail.
A couple of letters from America would be handed out and soon
discussion grew lively. Behind the herring barrel, by the fascinating
toy cabinet, stood the younger public and "small crocks also have
ears." So there was a good deal of news from America that made its
lasting impression while the children examined the toys. Someone
talked about the risks for the workers who were building
skyscrapers. High up they swayed terribly and it took strong nerves
and strong arms to balance the heavy wheelbarrows full of mortar
on narrow planks over the abyss.
A little man who was very talkative, whenever his stern wife was
not around, told—perhaps inspired by the mercantile surround­ings—
about a big department store he had visited out there. There
everything could be found, from pins to sailboats. The latter, fully
rigged and with sails raised, were displayed for prospective
customers on the seventh floor. One naturally wondered then
whether the assembled listeners were not being exposed to
"fraud" ["bedrägerier"]. This expressive term I discovered many
decades later in an emigrant guide from 1858. The author states his
intention in his presentation of "warning against frauds," but he
soon becomes caught up in his account and describes how "the
land stands open" which yields 900 times the amount of seed corn
planted and where a sea of grazing land is covered with green grass
four a l n a r [about 8 feet] high and where a maple seed, planted one
foot deep will provide pleasant shade within three or four years!
Sometimes a letter would arrive from the shoemaker's boy, who
was a successful gold-miner way out on the west side of the vast
land. You understood people's longing to hear from their dear ones
and their joy when letters finally arrived. " A s cold waters to a
thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country," it says in the Book
of Proverbs (Chapter 25, Verse 25).
There in the store I saw rubber boots for the first time. They were
white with red soles. Here and there they had small patches on
them, cut out of a bicycle inner tube. The old fellow who proudly
125
A l b e r t A r o n s s o n from Lilla Rud in Ör p a r i s h , photo­g
r a p h e d for t h e folks at h o m e in Central Park i n N e w
York City.
demonstrated them in a puddle in the horse pasture had gotten
them from a son in the States, and they surely came to good use on
the muddy dirt roads in the fall.
In a croft [torpstuga] in the Örsberg woods sat "Swedish Jan" and
recalled the incomparable drudgery of working as a "picker" in a
coal mine, until homesickness drove him back to the " O ld
Country." Sometimes during my childhood a stout livestock buyer
would come by on his bicycle. He and his wife had been employed
by a millionaire's family in California, he as a servant and his wife
as a chambermaid. This gave us glimpses of a luxurious way of life
that astonished members of a smallholder's family during the hard
times of the 1930s.
When spring came, the gardener and master of all trades Anders
Eden arrived with his big grafting carton on his bicycle. While the
trees were still in winter hibernation he came back to try the art of
"rejuvenation by pruning back" on the gnarled apple trees from
Grandfather's time. He had wandered far and wide across the
endless American continent, from the fruit orchards of California to
the logging camps of Canada.
126
Some of the storytellers had a remarkable ability to bring the past
back to life. You imagined you could almost hear the babel of
tongues in the overcrowded bunkhouse and the clatter of pots and
pans in the cookhouse where Eden had been the cook. And an
acute listener could perhaps catch the squeak of snowshoes and the
swish of runners when the trapper came dragging his loaded sled
on his way to his log cabin as twilight settled over the Northland.
While he worked Eden would now and then break into an old
country song, which in his translation went like this:
Old Man Johnny went to town,
Riding on a pony.
He stuck a feather in his hat
And called it Macaroni.
How can one who has ventured forth on Krokån [a local stream]
in his father's home-built rowboat be so fascinated by 250-meter-long
steamships and the history of the North Atlantic shipping
lines? To be sure, the Swedish America Line advertised its palatial
T h e S w e d i s h - A m e r i c a n L i n e ' s p r o u d G r i p s h o l m , l a u n c h e d in 1 9 2 5 , with its 1 8 , 8 1 5 - t on
displacement, was i n its day S c a n d i n a v i a ' s largest vessel. (From a G e r m a n bookmark.)
steamers now and then in the local newspaper, but the answer was
surely to be found in A l l e r s , that fantastic family journal which was
in fact not easy to get hold of. In part this was because "romance
magazines" were not well regarded in a pious home back in the late
Pastor Forsberg's time, in part because 35 ore was a lot of money
when milk cost 6 or 7 ore a liter. But the hired folk bought the
magazine sometimes and then one friend or another would be able
127
to borrow it. A l l e r s often carried illustrated articles about emigra­tion,
and now and then there were pages stapled in the middle that
could be folded over and fastened together with a safety pin to
make small, fact-filled handbooks. In them you could read
wonderful stories about the mammoths of the seas propelled by
wind and steam. There were accounts of festive launchings and
tragic shipwrecks.
We have spoken of the joy when letters and messages arrived. But
there were many who had to wait in vain. In a poor cabin in the
woods belonging to the church farm lived an old mother who
longed to hear something from her son out there in America. On
mail days she went to the pastor's, but Pastor Anngren who was in
charge of the mail had no letter to give her. In the evenings at
Christmastime the old woman stood on her doorstep and listened
for any sound from the direction of the road until the cold drove her
inside—maybe he might still come for Christmas. But not until the
waiting mother already rested in the churchyard close by did the
prodigal son return to take care of the pitiful inheritance.
On the small farms in my childhood community there were
almost always hired folk. Farming required a great deal of labor
before machines took both the work and the earnings. At our home
we had a marvelously capable girl from the hills. Next door they
operated a dairy and there a handsome cotter's son was the
foreman. The two "hit it off" together and eventually the lad
decided to try his fortune in America to make a future for them
both. He departed and soon the letters began to arrive. So happy
she would be, that quiet girl! He was an able fellow and things went
well for him out there. Soon perhaps his sweetheart would be able
to follow after on the G r i p s h o l m or one of the Swedish America
Line's other proud ships.
But the joy, alas, did not last very long. The letters became fewer
and farther between until they stopped coming altogether. Letters
came to the boy's home, however. Soon there came a photo of his
new fiancee and of a newly built house. During the summer he
came home to visit and swished about on the roads in a big
American automobile. But his former love he never looked up. She
moved back to her father and mother and helped them on their
little croft as long as she lived. She ended her life at a clinic for
nervous disorders. Her sorrow and disappointment became too
heavy for her to bear. But the former crofter's son also met a tragic
end. On a trip to his old homeland his plane landed in London.
128
Two e m i g r a n t s f r o m Ör p h o t o g r a p h e d i n
Worcester, M a s s a c h u s e t t s . In time both A l b e rt
C h r i s t i a n s s o n (left) and G u n n a r M e l i n ( r i g h t)
r e t u r n e d to t h e i r old p a r i s h in D a l s l a n d .
There he was so overcome by the heavy smog which that fall hung
over the city that he ended his days in that foreign land.
When at a later time I sought to gather folk memories out in the
countryside I was reminded time and again of the connections
between little Dalsland and the great land to the west. It might be a
lively oldster who recounted his memories of places where he had
worked in America, or it might be someone who had saved up
money out there to buy a farm. Many went over to try to pay off
their debts during hard times. The local newspaper writes of how
some 250 borrowers from the Nordal Härad Savings Bank could not
keep up their payments during the 1880s. " A sad but striking proof
of the distress prevailing among the farmers of this locality," the
newspaper writes. At Brålanda they tell of about 30 women who
looked after their farms alone, with children and animals, when
their husbands crossed the Atlantic to try to earn enough to pay off
their farm debts. Most of them came home after long, hard years.
129
And even today ties remain between kinfolk. For this we need to
thank, not least of all, the Swedish-American press, in which such
outstanding Dalslanders as [Jakob] Bonggren and [Waldemar]
Skoglund were active, and all the religious and secular organiza­tions
which work to preserve cultural relations. We think in
particular of the distinguished Vasa Order of America, which for 85
years has done such important work. A 90-year-old woman in the
States wrote recently, "Have belonged to the Vasa Order for 62
years now and I am so happy about that. I am now an Honorary
Life Member. Have always worked on different committees and we
always have such f u n . " That the founders were far-sighted is
shown by the fact that women, from the very start, were members
in full standing in the Order. In Sweden, too, the Vasa Order works
tirelessly in various ways. Here in Dalsland, for example, Lodge 664
in Mellerud has, through its publication of books and its fund,
enriched our cultural life and tightened the bonds that join us to
our kinfolk in the West. One wishes all success to the devoted work
that preserves cultural contacts between those who departed and
those who remained behind.
(Translated by H . ARNOLD BARTON)
130

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A DREAM-LAND IN THE WEST
ARNE ALEXANDERSSON
A thousand visible and invisible threads tie us to our kinfolk to
the west. There are surely few people in Dalsland who do not have a
relative or friend out there in that great land, following the greatest
folk migration that has ever occurred in historic times. In the course
of a century, beginning in 1820, 40 million persons emigrated from
Europe to America. Dalsland was well to the fore: its emigrants
were almost as numerous as the province's present population. It
was no coincidence that the great German Bremen Line maintained
its own agency in Mellerud during the height of the emigration.
For my own part, I have no contacts with the United States.
Strangely enough there were few in my family who tried their luck
in the West. Of them, some returned and some disappeared. Still
the great emigration has beguiled and fascinated me since my
childhood.
After working many y e a r s for an A m e r i c a n m i l l i o n a i r e ' s family, A n n a Kajsa A n d e r s d o t t er
Möller r e t u r n e d a r o u n d 1 9 1 0 to Ör p a r i s h , w h e r e she built this home i n s p i r e d by t h e
A m e r i c a n bungalow style.
124
For many years my uncle had a country store here in the village of
Assarby-Berga in Or parish. Mail came in three times a week and
around dawn on winter days the mail carrier, Oskar Andersson
from Kroken, arrived on a sleigh drawn by a frisky little horse. The
horse was tied up to the hitching post and got an armload of hay
and a blanket on its back. "Post-Oskar" slung the heavy leather
pouch over his shoulder and went into the store. The usual bunch
who hung out there had gathered to wait for the mail.
A couple of letters from America would be handed out and soon
discussion grew lively. Behind the herring barrel, by the fascinating
toy cabinet, stood the younger public and "small crocks also have
ears." So there was a good deal of news from America that made its
lasting impression while the children examined the toys. Someone
talked about the risks for the workers who were building
skyscrapers. High up they swayed terribly and it took strong nerves
and strong arms to balance the heavy wheelbarrows full of mortar
on narrow planks over the abyss.
A little man who was very talkative, whenever his stern wife was
not around, told—perhaps inspired by the mercantile surround­ings—
about a big department store he had visited out there. There
everything could be found, from pins to sailboats. The latter, fully
rigged and with sails raised, were displayed for prospective
customers on the seventh floor. One naturally wondered then
whether the assembled listeners were not being exposed to
"fraud" ["bedrägerier"]. This expressive term I discovered many
decades later in an emigrant guide from 1858. The author states his
intention in his presentation of "warning against frauds," but he
soon becomes caught up in his account and describes how "the
land stands open" which yields 900 times the amount of seed corn
planted and where a sea of grazing land is covered with green grass
four a l n a r [about 8 feet] high and where a maple seed, planted one
foot deep will provide pleasant shade within three or four years!
Sometimes a letter would arrive from the shoemaker's boy, who
was a successful gold-miner way out on the west side of the vast
land. You understood people's longing to hear from their dear ones
and their joy when letters finally arrived. " A s cold waters to a
thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country," it says in the Book
of Proverbs (Chapter 25, Verse 25).
There in the store I saw rubber boots for the first time. They were
white with red soles. Here and there they had small patches on
them, cut out of a bicycle inner tube. The old fellow who proudly
125
A l b e r t A r o n s s o n from Lilla Rud in Ör p a r i s h , photo­g
r a p h e d for t h e folks at h o m e in Central Park i n N e w
York City.
demonstrated them in a puddle in the horse pasture had gotten
them from a son in the States, and they surely came to good use on
the muddy dirt roads in the fall.
In a croft [torpstuga] in the Örsberg woods sat "Swedish Jan" and
recalled the incomparable drudgery of working as a "picker" in a
coal mine, until homesickness drove him back to the " O ld
Country." Sometimes during my childhood a stout livestock buyer
would come by on his bicycle. He and his wife had been employed
by a millionaire's family in California, he as a servant and his wife
as a chambermaid. This gave us glimpses of a luxurious way of life
that astonished members of a smallholder's family during the hard
times of the 1930s.
When spring came, the gardener and master of all trades Anders
Eden arrived with his big grafting carton on his bicycle. While the
trees were still in winter hibernation he came back to try the art of
"rejuvenation by pruning back" on the gnarled apple trees from
Grandfather's time. He had wandered far and wide across the
endless American continent, from the fruit orchards of California to
the logging camps of Canada.
126
Some of the storytellers had a remarkable ability to bring the past
back to life. You imagined you could almost hear the babel of
tongues in the overcrowded bunkhouse and the clatter of pots and
pans in the cookhouse where Eden had been the cook. And an
acute listener could perhaps catch the squeak of snowshoes and the
swish of runners when the trapper came dragging his loaded sled
on his way to his log cabin as twilight settled over the Northland.
While he worked Eden would now and then break into an old
country song, which in his translation went like this:
Old Man Johnny went to town,
Riding on a pony.
He stuck a feather in his hat
And called it Macaroni.
How can one who has ventured forth on Krokån [a local stream]
in his father's home-built rowboat be so fascinated by 250-meter-long
steamships and the history of the North Atlantic shipping
lines? To be sure, the Swedish America Line advertised its palatial
T h e S w e d i s h - A m e r i c a n L i n e ' s p r o u d G r i p s h o l m , l a u n c h e d in 1 9 2 5 , with its 1 8 , 8 1 5 - t on
displacement, was i n its day S c a n d i n a v i a ' s largest vessel. (From a G e r m a n bookmark.)
steamers now and then in the local newspaper, but the answer was
surely to be found in A l l e r s , that fantastic family journal which was
in fact not easy to get hold of. In part this was because "romance
magazines" were not well regarded in a pious home back in the late
Pastor Forsberg's time, in part because 35 ore was a lot of money
when milk cost 6 or 7 ore a liter. But the hired folk bought the
magazine sometimes and then one friend or another would be able
127
to borrow it. A l l e r s often carried illustrated articles about emigra­tion,
and now and then there were pages stapled in the middle that
could be folded over and fastened together with a safety pin to
make small, fact-filled handbooks. In them you could read
wonderful stories about the mammoths of the seas propelled by
wind and steam. There were accounts of festive launchings and
tragic shipwrecks.
We have spoken of the joy when letters and messages arrived. But
there were many who had to wait in vain. In a poor cabin in the
woods belonging to the church farm lived an old mother who
longed to hear something from her son out there in America. On
mail days she went to the pastor's, but Pastor Anngren who was in
charge of the mail had no letter to give her. In the evenings at
Christmastime the old woman stood on her doorstep and listened
for any sound from the direction of the road until the cold drove her
inside—maybe he might still come for Christmas. But not until the
waiting mother already rested in the churchyard close by did the
prodigal son return to take care of the pitiful inheritance.
On the small farms in my childhood community there were
almost always hired folk. Farming required a great deal of labor
before machines took both the work and the earnings. At our home
we had a marvelously capable girl from the hills. Next door they
operated a dairy and there a handsome cotter's son was the
foreman. The two "hit it off" together and eventually the lad
decided to try his fortune in America to make a future for them
both. He departed and soon the letters began to arrive. So happy
she would be, that quiet girl! He was an able fellow and things went
well for him out there. Soon perhaps his sweetheart would be able
to follow after on the G r i p s h o l m or one of the Swedish America
Line's other proud ships.
But the joy, alas, did not last very long. The letters became fewer
and farther between until they stopped coming altogether. Letters
came to the boy's home, however. Soon there came a photo of his
new fiancee and of a newly built house. During the summer he
came home to visit and swished about on the roads in a big
American automobile. But his former love he never looked up. She
moved back to her father and mother and helped them on their
little croft as long as she lived. She ended her life at a clinic for
nervous disorders. Her sorrow and disappointment became too
heavy for her to bear. But the former crofter's son also met a tragic
end. On a trip to his old homeland his plane landed in London.
128
Two e m i g r a n t s f r o m Ör p h o t o g r a p h e d i n
Worcester, M a s s a c h u s e t t s . In time both A l b e rt
C h r i s t i a n s s o n (left) and G u n n a r M e l i n ( r i g h t)
r e t u r n e d to t h e i r old p a r i s h in D a l s l a n d .
There he was so overcome by the heavy smog which that fall hung
over the city that he ended his days in that foreign land.
When at a later time I sought to gather folk memories out in the
countryside I was reminded time and again of the connections
between little Dalsland and the great land to the west. It might be a
lively oldster who recounted his memories of places where he had
worked in America, or it might be someone who had saved up
money out there to buy a farm. Many went over to try to pay off
their debts during hard times. The local newspaper writes of how
some 250 borrowers from the Nordal Härad Savings Bank could not
keep up their payments during the 1880s. " A sad but striking proof
of the distress prevailing among the farmers of this locality," the
newspaper writes. At Brålanda they tell of about 30 women who
looked after their farms alone, with children and animals, when
their husbands crossed the Atlantic to try to earn enough to pay off
their farm debts. Most of them came home after long, hard years.
129
And even today ties remain between kinfolk. For this we need to
thank, not least of all, the Swedish-American press, in which such
outstanding Dalslanders as [Jakob] Bonggren and [Waldemar]
Skoglund were active, and all the religious and secular organiza­tions
which work to preserve cultural relations. We think in
particular of the distinguished Vasa Order of America, which for 85
years has done such important work. A 90-year-old woman in the
States wrote recently, "Have belonged to the Vasa Order for 62
years now and I am so happy about that. I am now an Honorary
Life Member. Have always worked on different committees and we
always have such f u n . " That the founders were far-sighted is
shown by the fact that women, from the very start, were members
in full standing in the Order. In Sweden, too, the Vasa Order works
tirelessly in various ways. Here in Dalsland, for example, Lodge 664
in Mellerud has, through its publication of books and its fund,
enriched our cultural life and tightened the bonds that join us to
our kinfolk in the West. One wishes all success to the devoted work
that preserves cultural contacts between those who departed and
those who remained behind.
(Translated by H . ARNOLD BARTON)
130